Computer Animation Complete

CHAPTER 8 Animating Biology

Jason Sharpe, Charles J. Lumsden Nicholas Woolridge

8.1 Introduction

To animate is to give life to an otherwise inanimate object [1]. For our purposes in 3D computing, the verb refers to a change over time in a property of a given item, rendered into a succession of still images, or frames. Somehow, our visual system is able to view this succession and create, in our minds, the perception of motion and behavior in the depicted objects. So we will begin this chapter with a brief look at how we see and how we perceive motion in animated images. You’ll then meet some of the lexicon and methods of animation and how and why they might be adapted to scientific visualization. A 3D computer animation workflow will be ...